At Home in the Mountains

 For all you garden enthusiasts out there: A couple more pics of the redone flower beds. Got new brick and bricked them in all the way around and put down new weed guard and mulch. They really look nice now. (Yep the lawn needs mowed. Aaron and I are on our 23rd round of rock,paper, scissors, for best out of 25 to see who has to mow. :) )  My be-yoo-tee-ful tomato plants. I have high hopes for them this year since we planted at the correct time.  The cherry toms are starting to turn red.  Sweet basil. Hope 4 plants will produce enough to make some yummy pesto here in a couple months.  Swiss chard. This stuff has grown great so far. We've had two batches and need to pick it again. It is kind of taste between spinach and collard greens. It's been good with bacon and onions or just steamed with a little salt and pepper.  Squash just came up.  Peppers. They have some blooms but no fruit yet.  Cukes. Hope these will do well be...

A picture I took of Maddy at Penn Farm inside Cedar Hill State Park. This is a pic I will use for the portrait session of my photography class.  Here are some quick pics of our weekend activities. We went camping with our church group at Cedar Hill State Park. It was perfect weather for camping. Low 70's for highs and 49 for a low at night. The kids roasted marshmallows. My hair still smells like campfire smoke after washing it twice. Ugg. We also had another true Texan experience. We got our first chigger bites. Maddy didn't get any but Aaron and I got quite a few around the ankles. Sitting by the campfire Checking out one of the old farm houses Wallace and Junior from Hank the Cowdog  These buzzards were just hanging out in a barn at the farm we walked around. I'd never seen a baby buzzard before. I think he's pretty cute. Some kind of beetle that was iridescent Maddy was really stressed out about having to pose for her picture on this old p...

Just a very quick update to say that we've been researching adoption agencies and that we've narrowed the agencies we are interested in going with down to two. We are planning to call and get more information from these agencies in the next few days. We want to make a decision about which agency we'll go with by the end of the month so that we can begin moving forward in the adoption process. So we really covet your prayers for us right now, that we'll have wisdom about which place to choose and that we'll make the best choice for our family and have receptive hearts to listen to where God is leading us. Thanks for all the prayers you've already been praying for us in this process. Hopefully, we'll have exciting new about who we're going to be working with and what country we will be looking at soon!

Maddy in her Easter finery The Marilyn Monroe Pretty girl  On Aaron's birthday, after church, we went down on Spur 408 by DBU and took some pictures of the bluebonnets. They were so pretty. This is the first time since moving to Texas that we have actually gone out and stopped to look at the bluebonnets and take pictures. All part of the quest to become true Texans I guess. We've seen the Alamo, we've taken pictures in the bluebonnets, and Aaron has started calling the little berm in the field behind our house a "mountain". I'd say we are well on our way to being dyed in the wool Texans. :) My two favorite people in the world.

Marking in the egg with a paraffin crayon before putting it in the dye  It seems that we have only had one "normal" Easter since Maddy was born. The 1st Easter, she came home from NICU on Easter day and we has Subway sandwiches for Easter dinner. 2nd Easter was the "normal" Easter where we wore our Easter dresses to church, got some pics of Maddy in front of the tulips in our yard, had ham and the whole 9 yards for lunch. We did miss the neighborhood Easter egg hunt because we arrived 2 minutes after it started and it was already over.  3rd Easter, we came home Maddy's first major surgery at Scottish Rite that weekend and Maddy had purple casts up to her hips on both legs on Easter day. Some friends from church brought us Easter dinner. 4th Easter (this year) we were driving home from York on Easter day. We did a flying trip up there on Easter weekend for the President's Counsel thing that Aaron likes to be a part of. Unfortunately, my allergies kicked i...

 Ever heard that country song that says, "I run my life.......or is it runnin' me?" Sorta feel like my life has been running me lately. But, anyhow, Maddy had a great 3rd birthday! This one really was the most fun yet and she has had some great b-day celebrations. I think it was so fun because she really knew what was going on. She was anticipating her birthday for a couple of weeks and that was very fun to watch and then to see how all that anticipation was fulfilled on her birthday. We started with the swing set in the morning (sorry my pictures are all out of order for some reason). It was so funny when we opened the curtains on the window to the backyard. At first Maddy was just looking out to see if she could spot the dogs. She couldn't and was about to pull away when the swing set caught her eye and she did a double take. It was really one of the most precious things I've ever seen. She just stared at it for a minute and then said, "That's a slide...